In a statement, the Geneva public prosecutor said a woman called Swiss customs on Tuesday evening to say there would be a woman with a bomb in the French sector of the airport on Wednesday.

In light of recent terrorist atrocities, particularly the attacks in France and the bombings of Brussels and Istanbul airports earlier this year, police took the threat extremely seriously.

“There was a very good reaction, first from the customs office, then the police, who took it very seriously and looked to examine the situation which allowed the public prosecutor's office to quickly identify the source of the call,” Geneva public prosecutor Olivier Jornot told newspaper Le Tribune de Genève.

The call came from a property in the Annecy region of France, which French authorities then searched under powers granted by the state of emergency in France which was extended after the truck attack on Nice on July 14th.

The woman resident of the property admitted to police that she had made a false claim against the airport, saying she wanted to stop her husband leaving.

Speaking to the Tribune, Annecy public prosecutor Eric Maillaud said the woman's actions were aimed at her husband's mistress.

“She said she wanted to prevent the departure of a person she thought was the mistress of her husband who was going to Turkey with her two children,” he said.

Criminal proceedings against the woman have now been opened by both the Swiss and French authorities.

Her actions caused significant problems, economic consequences and worry for hundreds of people in light of recent attacks on airports elsewhere, said Maillaud, going on to point out that times have changed.

“If she'd done the same thing three years ago, perhaps it wouldn't have caused all that,” he said.

The director of the Geneva Centre for Training and Analysis of Terrorism (CGTAT) justified the police response, telling the paper that in the global context, Geneva didn't want to take any risks.

While Wednesday's emergency measures are no longer in place, the airport is still subject to heightened security put in place following attacks elsewhere.